The scandal that erupted after California state Senator Leland Yee was indicted on multiple charges of corruption and conspiracy turned the national spotlight on the race for secretary of state in California -- a race Yee is a candidate in. In the irony that is only suited for American politics, Californians had an opportunity to read Yee's pledge to fight corruption in the voter information guide delivered in the mail this week to over 10.6 million voters.

Presidential politics are all about numbers, from campaign spending, third party interest funding, and electoral votes (EV). Battleground states, by definition, shift the winning side every 4 years or so, hence they are where both Democrats and Republicans fight the hardest for each vote.

A local news station in New Mexico, KOB 4, recently aired a story about how independent voters in the state are excluded from the upcoming primaries, which will be held on June 3. The inability of independent voters (and all voters) to have full and meaningful participation in the election process has long been ignored by most media outlets, but as the number of independent voters rise, it is getting harder for traditional media outlets to overlook.

“Irredentism” is the philosophy by which a state advocates the annexation of another state’s territory because of a common ethnicity or because of former possession of that territory. Perhaps its most infamous instance, albeit by no means its most recent, was Adolf Hitler’s use of it to justify his invasion of Poland as a way to reclaim the Baltic seaport of Danzig with its majority German population.

Recently, in the case Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, the United States Supreme Court, by a 6-2 vote, upheld a Michigan ban on affirmative action. The ban stated that universities didn't have to consider race as a requirement for enrollment. Michigan isn't alone with a ban either as states like California, Washington, Oklahoma, New Hampshire, and others have done so, as well.

Colorado made history in 2012 when state voters approved Amendment 64, which made it legal for people over 21 to buy small amounts of recreational marijuana. The law went into effect on January 1, 2014, making Colorado the first state to tax legal recreational marijuana.

Evolve, adapt, or die. That is the message U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has for his own party. The potential Republican presidential candidate spoke at Harvard University on Friday before his appearance at the Maine GOP's convention on Saturday.

Can one ordinary citizen change the world?

It is difficult to estimate the number of people who use Twitter to try to change our dysfunctional political environment. According to Twitter, the number of active monthly users is 241 million, sending a combined total of 500 million tweets per day. If we multiply that one ordinary citizen by 241 million, we have great potential to spread a message of political harmony. Sadly, this is not everyone’s intent. But it's not just the numbers that matter.

A phone service provider filed a lawsuit -- which was subsequently rejected -- against NSA data collection, according to a report declassified on Friday.

Each generation has its crisis. Past generations had to fight against colonial rule, slavery, and world tyranny. Others had to rally for women’s suffrage and equal civil rights. In each case, the steel of our resolve was questioned, and the people answered every time..