On February 27, the South Dakota Senate unanimously passed HB 1012. The bill is now on its way to the governor. No legislator in either house voted against this bill. It says that a party must meet the vote test every four years. Current law says it must pass the vote test every two years. The bill has an urgency clause so assuming it is signed by the governor, it will go into effect immediately.

It’s budget neutral if you can believe it! And it's got the stamp of approval from Ivanka Trump and Senator Mark Rubio (R) and other major players on Capitol Hill.

Hadley Heath Manning, Policy Director for The Independent Women’s Forum pitches her organization’s new idea for helping families adjust to thier new addition.

Why should taxpayers be footing the bill to the tune of $445 million in recent years, for a liberal media voice?

It's an argument that's been made in conservative and some independent circles for years.

Now, in an effort to perhaps curry favor with the White House and give its audience a little more balanced coverage, PBS says they are launching a "conservative" program April 13th.

Columnist Michael Gerson and commentator Amy Holmes will co-anchor the program called "In Principle." PBS will decide after an eight-week run whether to continue.

Our politicians seem to hide their personal lives from us so well that we truly don’t know who they are. Only after a major scandal or legal action do we get to fling open their closet doors and see the many skeletons piled inside.

Fortunately, Arizona has a man running for governor who decided to open his closet for public viewing, and the media took notice.

Here’s something that should chill you to your bones: the state of human rights, including journalistic freedom, is in noticeable decline all across the world.

I watched as the microphone I had clipped to my interviewee's coat was suddenly yanked off, and she was silenced by a well-dressed woman with the teacher's union who had approached us. We were standing in front of the Supreme Court having a conversation about free speech and unions.

My interviewee was also a teacher's union supporter - but she wasn't supposed to talk. She was bewildered and so was I.

Let that sink in.

THE CONFRONTATION

Oral arguments kicked off in Janus v. AFSCME on Monday with groups supporting both sides.

The State of California sued the Trump administration in 2017 to block the construction of a wall along the southern border. That suit fell apart Tuesday at the hands of Judge Gonzalo Curiel, the same judge who was ridiculed by the president during the 2016 campaign:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKwps5fjjCY

On Monday, March 12 at 8 pm ET, hundreds of people will dial into Independent Voting’s national conference call. Jackie Salit, president of Independent Voting, hosts these calls, and I wanted to extend a personal invitation to you to join me on the call.

I’ve had the honor of organizing these calls and invite thousands of independent voters (and independent-minded Americans) to join me at what I think is one of the most important ongoing political events in the country.

Sierra Club San Diego has announced its endorsement of the SDSU West initiative.

Richard Miller, Development and Communications associate for SCSD told IVN San Diego, "SoccerCity is environmentally damaging. Ballot box land planning and the Sierra Club opposes the development and proposals like SoccerCity that uses the initiative process to bypass environmental review and convert public land to private profit."

The folks at "Louder with Crowder," a conservative-leaning website, might elicit mixed emotions for their headlines. However, they have released a rather interesting infographic on the dominance of "fake news" since the 2016 presidential election -- an issue compounded by the public's heavy use of social media.

The following infographic breaks "fake news" down by the numbers, looking at online statistics and survey results on how the public has reacted to fake news: