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As reported by the Wall Street Journal, Facebook has asked large US banks to allow it access to detailed customer data. The social media giant claims the talks were aimed at offering new features with the information. Facebook's stock price may have popped 3% on the news, with investors impressed by new developments in its business model, but it has not been well received by data privacy advocates or by lawmakers, and it is sure to increase chatter over the company on Capitol Hill. Congressional

Abraham Lincoln once famously said, “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” In October of last year, Pew Research released a study revealing what many of us already know: the partisan divide has grown dramatically. Even more disconcerting is that even though people have been leaving the Democratic and Republican parties in droves, “fewer Americans hold a mix of views. Instead, “the shares of Americans holding liberal or conservative views across a wider range of issues – is increasingly

Earlier this year, Utah and Washington quietly joined 14 other states that have eliminated the use of registration deadlines as a final cutoff to be able to vote. The congruent actions of a red state and blue state bring the number of states that allow voters to register or update a registration when they go to vote to nearly one in three. It’s a critical threshold that could spell the end of voter registration deadlines as we’ve known them for 100 years. Enabling voters to address and fix reg

Santa Barbara, CA. - The City of Santa Barbara has passed an ordinance that allows restaurant employees to be punished with up to six months of jail time or a $1,000 fine for giving plastic straws to their customers. Santa Barbara’s ordinance is certainly the most severe straw ban in the country. Although Seattle banned plastic straws earlier this month, mandating a $250 fine for violators, Santa Barbara has taken it further than Seattle. The city has banned not only plastic straws, but also co

It started with a speech on Sunday, in which Iranian president Hassan Rouhani sent a warning to the United States about pursuing a foreign policy hostile toward his government in Tehran, but to Donald Trump, Iranian president Rouhani was the one in need of a warning, and of course America's 21st century television game show host president had to make his implicit threat far more dramatic. While addressing a gathering of Iranian diplomats Sunday, Rouhani issued this warning for the United States

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwyVJ_-q0mE&feature=youtu.be Video Source: Rebel HQ When it comes to electoral reform right now, there is no hotter topic -- arguably -- than ranked choice voting (RCV). I have covered its use and its growth in popularity extensively on IVN, and momentum for the reform continues to grow. The biggest news came in June when Maine became the first state in the US to use RCV for state and non-presidential federal elections. The numbers indicate that independent vot

Nearing the two year mark since the shocking 2016 presidential election result devastated both the Democratic and Republican Party power structures, liberal mainstream media journalists are still stuck in the denial stage of the Kübler-Ross model of grief. They were so certain Hillary Clinton would win, the election result they expected was so cemented into their minds as an immutable reality before the election had even taken place, that they could not let go of the perfect world they had crea

I miss Anthony Kennedy already. Other people have written eloquently about Kennedy’s contributions to the Supreme Court. After the retirement of Sandra Day O’Connor (whom I miss, too), Kennedy became the swing vote in case after case. When a seminal case was argued before the high court, Kennedy was the justice who had to be persuaded. When a 5-4 decision came down, Kennedy was usually that crucial fifth vote. Sometimes he voted with the more liberal wing of the court; sometimes he voted with t

Democracy advocates recently celebrated a victory in Maine, where voters used ranked-choice voting in their statewide primaries — the first state ever to do so. In that election, voters also approved a referendum to keep the ranked-choice system for future elections. They will use it this November in the elections for U.S. Senate and U.S. House.ALSO READ: Independents Made the Difference in Maine’s Ranked Choice VotingAdvocates say this method of voting opens up the system to third parties and i

RANCHO SANTA FE, CALIF. – While small town parades, backyard barbecues and fireworks displays may be what many people associate with the 4th of July, Independence Day deserves far greater respect. Fifty-six men signed a single piece of parchment on this day in 1776 that contained 1,338 words that changed the history of the world for the better. That hallowed document claimed independence not only for a Nation but for a People. Unfortunately, 242 years later, we are in danger of surrendering to