The most difficult part of maintaining a news platform that is open to all ideologies and opinions is that people often rush to judgment about the motivations of the entire operation based on the content and context of a single article. In short, IVN.us is biased ... in many directions ... by hundreds of authors who are given wide latitude to write about any topic that helps advance our political dialogue in a positive direction.

Currently the United States owns five inhabited island territories. The citizens of four of them -- Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands -- are all US citizens at birth. The citizens of American Samoa are born American Nationals who can gain citizenship upon moving to the states.

Hillary Clinton has a problem, and it's not going away. But if you think I intend a Hillary screed, read no further. I do not.

There are substantive reasons to oppose Mrs. Clinton for president; but they should be principled, not personal.

But before outlining my concerns about her candidacy, let me pay tribute to her remarkable life, for she is a greatly accomplished woman – First Lady of the United States, United States Senator from New York, Secretary of State, and twice candidate for President.

John Stossel is reportedly planning to host a nationally-televised Libertarian Party presidential primary debate on his show on Fox Business Network, possibly in March.

An announcement posted Tuesday on 2016 Libertarian presidential candidate and former Republican New Mexico governor Gary Johnson’s official Tumblr page read:

If the 2016 presidential election is proving anything, it’s that voters are not happy with the state of their union.

On the left and right, we’re seeing insurgents give establishment candidates a run for their money. Democrats are breaking from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vermont), a longtime independent and self-declared democratic socialist.

To win, the most important thing the next president will need to do is mobilize voters.

Obama won in 2008 and 2012 by mobilizing new voters -- mostly youth and black voters. By 2012, those constituents had waned for Obama. In 2014, the U.S. voter turnout was the lowest since WWII.

Arguably, Republicans won the Senate in 2014 because their electorate was more engaged.

Michael Maiello, contributor for RollingStone.com, published an article Tuesday titled, The Way America Picks Presidential Nominees is Dumb, concluding that party primaries are the biggest scam in the presidential election process.

Maiello decries a primary process that he argues puts political parties ahead of voters. He says that primaries instill an importance in two major political parties that "is unearned and, aside from the right of assembly, has no place in the U.S. Constitution."

The death of Justice Antonin Scalia has set the stage for the always politicized conversation about Supreme Court appointments and confirmations.

Within minutes of the news of his passing, both sides of the aisle were quick to express their political intentions: Republicans want to obfuscate and delay appointments until after the election; Obama and Democrats want to move forward with the standard procedures.

With the death of SCOTUS Justice Scalia, the Washington rhetoric has heated up--to at times insurmountable levels of blustery rhetoric that sounds good, but has no basis in fact or history.

Former Democratic U.S. Senator from Virginia and Secretary of the Navy Jim Webb announced on Thursday that he has decided against sparking an independent campaign for president of the United States.