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http://www.opencurrency.com/ Last week, the Colorado Senate voted in favor of an important election reform bill, making the state the latest example of a nationwide trend to expand voting access. In 2011 and 2012, a number of state legislatures passed laws implementing new restrictions on voter access, including requiring voter IDs, shortening early voting periods, or making it harder to register to vote. These initiatives, often led by Republican-controlled legislatures, were more or less suc

Credit: "Military drone starting from the runway"/ Shutterstock.com Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) -- more commonly known as drones -- are a topic of contention in the United States. Despite the numerous benefits that could come from the commercial use of drones, many concerns have been raised over this new technology, especially in regards to privacy rights. Here are 5 reasons why the U.S. is not ready for the domestic use drones. 1) Risk of Abuse While the U.S. military commonly uses drone

Rob Wilson / Shutterstock.com On April 30, the Texas Senate passed SB 1907, a campus handgun bill that would allow university and college students to store handguns in their vehicles while on campus. The bill was written by Republican State Senator Glenn Hegar. SB 1907 would prohibit Texas colleges and universities from adopting or enforcing policies to prevent students with a Texas Concealed Handgun License from storing legal firearms in their locked vehicles on campus parking lots. "This is

Congressman Geoff Davis, a Republican serving Kentucky's 4th congressional district, announced in 2011 that he was retiring from office at the end of his term, but in the summer of 2012, Davis resigned his seat immediately. With a resignation so late in his term and hoping to save the cost of a replacement election on another date, this created an unusual scenario: a special election and general election on the same day. Thomas Massie, the judge-executive of Lewis County and the winner of the M

(Credit: Gage Skidmore) With a spate of shootings in recent months, there are calls for tighter gun control and President Obama has political capital to spend. Getting much of what he wanted with the fiscal cliff, the president has proposed twenty-three executive orders, a practice he criticized while a U.S. Senator, to address gun policy in the event Congress does not pass adequate legislation. On the other side, Kentucky U.S. Senator Rand Paul declared on TV that the president does not have

Photo by Woodley Wonder Works Fears about the absence of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird or JD Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye are merely myths that mask real facts on a new national curriculum, Common Core Standards Initiative advocates argue. National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel said: "Change is hard. And a healthy dose of skepticism may be in order, especially when the stakes are so high. But as a general rule, doomsday scenarios rarely materialize." Those doomsday

Credit: The Washington Post As a battleground state, Virginia garners much attention leading up to elections. In 2012, it held one of the most expensive senate races in the United States history between former governors Tim Kaine and George Allen. Now, according to the first PPP poll for the 2013 gubernatorial election, Democrat Terry McAuliffe leads his opponent, Ken Cuccinelli, by five percentage points -- 46 to 41. This is just outside the margin of error. This marks McAuliffe's second att

Credit: lcmh.com/psych In the ongoing debate about how to stop mass shootings like Columbine, Virginia Tech, and now Sandy Hook Elementary, there are two issues that are being largely ignored in favor of blaming the gun; the state of the mental health care system and the effects that violent media have on those with mental or emotional problems. This isn't an unusual response to tragedies, according to Lisa Bahar, a licensed marriage and family therapist and licensed professional clinical coun

Another year has passed and a handful of notable media misreports along with it. One of the most prestigious journalists was caught plagiarizing another journalist’s work this year as well as one reporter's serious lack of fact-checking regarding the Aurora shooting. Perhaps the most heinous of media misreports this year was not a single event at all but the consistently uncritical examination of the 2012 election process. This list of 5 media fails of 2012 reviews the more memorable media miss

As reports slowly trickle in disclosing the money spent the week leading up to 2012’s presidential election, the identities of the spenders are coming into focus. Yet, even the most avid researcher won’t see the whole picture given current campaign finance disclosure requirements. California Senate Bill 52 was introduced yesterday in response to $11 million that was allegedly laundered through nonprofit organizations in Arizona to affect California propositions 30 and 32. According to the Fair