There are two big lies going around in the wake of the Parkland school shooting last week. They are the same two big lies that go around every time one of these tragic events occurs. The first is that we can keep this from happening again just by passing a few laws about guns. We can't. The idea that people who want to break laws will find ways to get guns to break laws is not entirely wrong. Legislation is a blunt instrument not a magic wand.

Beginning today, in four states across the country, lawsuits will be filed to challenge the way presidential electors are selected in America. The plaintiffs in these suits charge that the “winner-take-all” system—the system by which the candidate who wins the popular vote in a state gets all of the electoral college votes in that state—violates both the 14th Amendment’s principle of “one person, one vote,” and the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.

IVN is going to the Democrat and Republican conventions this weekend to ask the leaders of the two parties some tough questions.

In San Diego, the California Democrats State Convention is being held. IVN's Jeff Powers will be in attendance where we will carry keynote speeches from gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newson as well as Senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris. IVN will then ask the politicians tough questions on gerrymandering, two-party duopoly and how can they improve the fractured nature of Washington.

For me, history, the study of it and the making of it, has been an essential part of life.

Growing up in the underground of the poor black community, reading became my salvation, and reading about great historical developments, as well as hearing the soul stirring voice of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the radio, was my inspiration.

(1) If hundreds of children every year were killed by falling out of windows, could we all agree that wanting to make windows safer had nothing to do with being anti-window or wanting to take people’s windows away?

(2) If the greatest threat to children’s safety in school were the possibility of  angry rhinoceroses stampeding through the hallways, would we think to solve the problem by stationing an angry rhinoceros in every classroom?

Gerrymandering might be the issue of our time.

You know that sinking feeling you get after every single election where you just can’t understand how one party won so many seats? Gerrymandering is responsible for this phenomenon, which you might as well refer to as “artificial majorities.”

Is there any more grotesque example of American “exceptionalism” than our longstanding failure to respond to recurring, murderous violence in our schools?

Is the nation that led mankind to the moon and back unable to halt the tragic transformation of children and teachers into the neatly gathered, heedlessly compliant soft targets for cowards wielding weapons of war?

After the Florida legislature voted down a bill to ban so-called "assault weapons" with victims of the Stoneman Douglas high school shooting present, Dinesh D'Souza was trending all day yesterday for tweeting a link to the story with the comment: "Worst news since their parents told them to get summer jobs."

Worst news since their parents told them to get summer jobs https://t.co/Vg3mXYvb4c

"Well of course I'd love to have more [Republicans/Democrats] join our side, but they're all crazy."

In my experience, most people believe that they can pin down most of what somebody thinks based on whether they voted Republican or Democratic in the last mid-term. I've argued for a long time that this is a result of "Wedging" rather than reality: a few views from each side are amplified and accepted as universal by the other side.

T.J. O'Hara is joined by Associate Dean Sandra Sperino from University of Cincinnati College of Law. The two discuss sexual harassment within the context of our current socio-political environment, and within the context of Title VII, as well as the article she recently published.

Associate Dean of Faculty and Professor Sperino teaches in the areas of civil procedure, torts, and employment law. In 2013 and 2017, she received the Goldman Prize for Excellence in Teaching, at University of Cincinnati College of Law.