Last week, a bipartisan group of legislators introduced a bill intended to protect Americans' privacy and online data.
On Friday, February 6, the Cook Political Report published an article on the impact the nonpartisan, top-two primary and independent redistricting have had on voter turnout. The author, Amy Walter, points out that with both reforms in place, voter turnout has not increased, and has in fact been on the decline. An article by Mark Barabak of the LA Times draws the same conclusion.
New measures aimed at improving the safety and legitimacy of medical marijuana might be hitting California in the future as state lawmakers consider a
bill that would provide a regulatory structure for the state’s medical marijuana industry.
In a somewhat rare admission of negative news, the
People's Daily News acknowledged the newly-elected Greek government's reversal on the privatization of several ports in the Mediterranean Sea. For now, this is bad news for China, but the country's growing influence around the world still threatens American economic interests.
The budget wars have begun again.
The president unveiled his FY2016 budget that begins on October 1 and the price tag is $3.99 trillion. Obama likes to use the phrase “middle class economics,” but the GOP typically does not see the president’s goals as the best path forward for any income bracket. That is not entirely uncommon, but there are bright spots of possible compromise.
Military and Department of Defense leaders
testified in front of congressional panels this week, laying out worst case scenarios that could come to fruition if sequestration is allowed to continue. While sequestration seems to some like a good idea to cut the size of government, some of the unintended victims of these cuts are members of the United States military and their families.
The U.S. Department of Labor's numbers for December 2014 show a national unemployment rate of
5.6 percent, the lowest since June 2008. The results for January 2015 will release on Friday, and experts expect the rate to drop even further. The White House, Wall Street, and the media are celebrating what appears to be a near complete labor recovery from the financial crisis and recession of 2008.
In 1736 I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four years old, by the smallpox taken in the common way. I long regretted bitterly and still regret that I had not given it to him by inoculation. This I mention for the sake of the parents who omit that operation, on the supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a child died under it; my example showing that the regret may be the same either way, and that, therefore, the safer should be chosen.
Listening to political debate, it would seem that in contemporary America, you have the anti-government fiscal conservatives on one side, and the pro-expansionary government progressives on the other. This sort of ideological polarization rightly drives many citizens to the center, and from there they are unable to find a policy approach and ideology that can fit their proclivities.
Fortunately, there are indeed several American commentators actively espousing a coherent centrist philosophy; they are, however, somewhat hard to find.
Amidst a nationwide outbreak of measles, Kentucky U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R) made headlines this week for his controversial defense of a parent's right to choose whether or not to vaccinate their child.