When the federal government passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and forcibly transitioned New York from what most agree were reliable lever-based voting machines to the new, unexplored frontier of electronic balloting in 2010, the New York Board of Elections gave part-time Election Day poll workers many more new and different tasks that must be completed in order to properly administer elections.

On Monday, the Supreme Court of the United States refused to hear a case brought by the Electronic Privacy Information Center which challenged the NSA's authority to collect massive amounts of call data (also known as metadata) from Americans without reasonable suspicion of terrorist ties.

There are basically five ways for money to flow into politics; well, six if you include the revolving door -- oh wait -- there's also the spousal side door and family back door — so that makes seven. The following is a list of the top 10 individuals who donate to 527s, nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations with the primary purpose of influencing elections. Data was collected from the Center for Responsive Politics on OpenSecrets.org, which supplies a wealth — pun intended — of information.

When election season rolls around, Americans are inundated with TV ads, brochures, and phone calls from controversial groups looking to affect a candidate’s campaign or shift the momentum of a piece of legislation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9o3_9sJ5NVE

A documentary project by Ken Burns and PBS, The Address, challenges Americans to rehearse and memorize one of the most iconic speeches in history, Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. The documentary itself follows a middle school in Putney, Vermont, the Greenwood School, throughout the academic year as the students rehearse, memorize, and ultimately recite Lincoln's famous speech.

In an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper, Sarah Palin said using 'slavery' as a way to describe the national debt is only offensive to African-Americans if they misinterpret the word.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BegFoXDdDMk

"There is another definition of slavery and that is being beholden to some kind of master that is not your choosing," Palin said.

The GOP is trying to redesign its nomination process aiming to rein in the recent rash of extreme nominees who keep losing winnable races. These fringe nominees have secondary effects as well.

According to a recent AP report, the Government Accountability Office took a deeper look into a Transportation Security Administration program to visually screen -- profile -- passengers for suspicious behavior.

One would think that because neither Democrats nor Republicans have unilateral control, now would be the prime time for bipartisan compromise. That today's political climate is ripe for Congress to make headway on some historical legislation, like immigration reform, and for Congress to regain the trust of the American people.