In the Illinois 13th congressional district, a former Miss America winner is challenging one of the House's newest members.

With the recent May jobs report showing the United States added 175,000 jobs last month, there is not much attention on the much smaller number of jobs the federal government shed.

Much of the right-wing resistance to the post-Newtown gun control push was animated, not by gun owners’ commitment to hunting or personal defense, but by the idea that an armed society is a fundamental safeguard against government tyranny.

For example, in a hearing on gun control, NRA leader Wayne LaPierre told Congress that the Founding Fathers conceived of the Second Amendment because “they had lived under the tyranny of King George and they wanted to make sure that these free people in this new country would never be subjugated again and have to live under tyranny.”

I am one of the most useless human beings I know. Sad but true. I have three degrees in English literature, I did not get my first job until I was 30 years old, and I have never worked for more than three months except at a college or university. I have never changed a tire or balanced a checkbook.  I do not even understand sports metaphors. There is almost nothing that I can claim to be an expert about.

I am one of the most useless human beings I know. Sad but true. I have three degrees in English literature, I did not get my first job until I was 30 years old, and I have never worked for more than three months except at a college or university. I have never changed a tire or balanced a checkbook.  I do not even understand sports metaphors. There is almost nothing that I can claim to be an expert about.

In American politics, few mainstream figures are as controversial as former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura. A Navy SEAL, pro-wrestler, singer, and movie star, the one-time Reform Party candidate can boast of having achieved a great many accomplishments in an assortment of fields, though mastering conventionalism is not one of them.

On February 14, 2013, the 89-year-old senator from New Jersey, Frank Lautenberg, announced he would not run for reelection in 2014. Although the move had been long suspected from the man who was already the oldest serving senator, the announcement set into a motion a long race to replace him among Republicans, independents, and Democrats.

However, when Lautenberg died earlier this week from complications with viral pneumonia, what had seemed like a marathon quickly became a sprint.

Immigration has always played an important role in the development of California over the last two centuries. Today, immigrants represent a major portion of the California's electorate and more importantly have become the backbone of the economy.

According to the Immigration Policy Center's 2013 report,  foreign-born Californians now represent 27 percent of the state population and nearly half of them have been naturalized, meaning they can vote in the elections.

I had to wait a day longer than most people to start being outraged about America's new wiretapping scandal. I learned about the government’s nefarious deeds yesterday during a five hour layover at the Dallas-Forth Worth Airport. As soon as I was done having my underwear X-rayed and my private parts patted down by TSA agents, I caught the whole sorry thing on an airport TV screen.