Many political observers have remarked that this election cycle is one of the most toxic in history, contending that campaign vitriol and inaccurate allegations have dominated the national discussion. But how does this campaign cycle compare to previous presidential election years?

A federal court on Thursday upheld the U.S. Department of Justice’s decision to block a Texas voter ID law passed by the 82nd Texas Legislature. This is the second time in less than a week a three-judge panel ruled against state lawmakers and found the state of Texas in violation of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Rep. Paul Ryan made waves on Twitter last night, causing an outburst of tweets relating to the GOP convention upon accepting his Vice Presidential nomination, prompting more tweets than were sent during the entirety of both the Republican and Democratic conventions of 2008. Granted, the social network was novel back then, but peaking at 6,669 tweets per minute, Ryan drove more tweets than any speaker thus far.

In a blog post, Twitter shares:

With new social networks constantly emerging, it's hard to keep the rules of social media straight. If I repin this image on Pinterest, am I violating copyright law? What's the different between RT and MT on Twitter? What's the official hashtag of the Republican National Convention; #GOPconvention or #RNC2012? Does it matter?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZipUINVXIc

In case you missed it, here's Paul Ryan's address to the Republican National Convention that had everyone talking. But just how much of it was true?

"In the last year, the U.S. has helped orchestrate the overthrow of the Libyan government, it is funneling some aid to Syrian insurgents, and it has been selling massive amounts of weapons to Gulf Arab monarchs.