The United States has some of the lowest voter turnout and voter participation rates of any industrialized country in the world. Low voter turnout is typically ascribed to voter ignorance and apathy or to the lack of choice in our two-party dominated political system.

The recent tragedy in Aurora, Colorado has prompted a variety of responses from lawmakers on the issue of gun control and a semi-automatic weapons ban. Senator Dianne Feinstein said Sunday on Fox News Sunday, "weapons of war don't belong on the streets."

Despite being known for its strives in independent leaders, like Angus King, Mainers have held stead fast in their republican and democrat labels. Maine has showed a .8% decrease in registered republicans (down to 28%) since 1996, and a .4% increase in registered democrats (from 31.7 to 32.1), the number of registered independent voters in main has only increased 0.1%.

Check out the Chart here.

The last two presidents to lose a re-election campaign were Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush. This cycle, Romney is trying to lump Obama in with them. Regardless of his fundraising and campaign spending, the GOP hopeful seems to be facing an uphill battle that is being ignored elsewhere as Obama's approval rating is climbing.

Joining the looming budget sequester cuts with seemingly no conclusion in site, is another major national issue: the farm bill, in the form of a giant piece of legislation which comes up every 5 years.

Today, the California State Controller's office released a surprisingly upbeat and BOLD analysis; a sharp contrast from last month's report.

U.S. emissions have dropped 7.7% since 2006 due to the rapid switch from coal to shale gas.  All this cheap gas came from a concerted, public-private effort dating back to the mid-1970s to cheaply extract gas from shale. There is a clear lesson for those concerned about global warming: seek public-private investments in technological innovation to make clean energy cheap.