If there are any truths to hang your hat on in the ongoing debate about the future of American healthcare, it’s this one: Medicare is really expensive.
But evidence is mounting that it is the last point — the fact that people move — that is key, and that past assumptions about why tenants don't vote may be incorrect.
Political scientists who have been re-evaluating reams of voting data have found that whether a tenant votes is less about political will and more about the cumbersome and at times elusive process of registering.
Something that you hear about quite a lot these days is the "all of the above" energy plan. The phrase is in both party platforms with the general idea being that our energy needs should be met by using all forms of energy available -- coal, oil, gas, nuclear, renewables, biofuels, etc. Diversifying our energy sources and moving away from strictly relying on fossil fuels is a good idea.
The last few weeks have not brought good news for those of us wanting a future powered by clean energy. Thesouthern portion of the TransCanada pipeline is under construction. On top of that, New York State will lift its moratorium and allow fracking to occur in the state.
To make sure that no voter is subjected to intimidation when they hit the polls next month, one organization is dispensing military veterans to booths across the country.
Wednesday night’s first presidential debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney was live-blogged or live-tweeted by almost every think tank. The depth of the commentary ranged from appearance to proposal. After a little time to process, think tank experts are weighing in with analysis beyond 140 characters.
Accounting for 12 percent of the federal budget, and costing $509 Billion in total expenditures in 2010, Medicare is a massive expense. In part one of this series, we set out four trends that are key to understanding the rising cost of Medicare.
Kimberly Kelley of Tampa has provided Florida elections officials with thousands of names of people she thinks may be ineligible to vote and should be removed from the rolls. On Election Day, she’ll join thousands more — people of all political stripes — to monitor balloting.
“I believe there is fraud both ways. I don’t think it’s a specific group,” said Kelley, a registered Republican whose group is called Tampa Vote Fair. “We’re just there to observe. We’re not going to intimidate anyone.”
Four years ago, voter turnout was 49 percent -- the highest since 1968. Still, it remains to be seen if voters will come out in droves as they did during the election. To make sure that no avoidable factors -- ranging from intimidation to a lack of a photo ID -- keeps people at home on Nov. 6, five organizations are hitting the ground to do what they can to encourage all groups to get out and cast their ballots.
In 2008, young people—particularly those of color—endured more voting restrictions than any other youth voting demographic that came before, yet black youth turnout hit its highest rate in history.
Several developments in the past three years suggest that the case for upholding section 5 against constitutional challenge has been strengthened compared to the situation in 2009.
The money is the story. The money is the only story. The money was not the only story ever since this campaign began, which was 15 minutes after the past one ended, but it became the only story on January 21, 2010, when the Supreme Court reversed a lower-court decision in the case of Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, thereby demolishing almost a century of state and federal laws aimed at controlling the system by which we finance our political campaigns.
Lorraine C. Minnite, a Rutgers University political scientist and a senior fellow at Demos, a liberal think tank, looked for a turnout effect in a 2009 paper she co-authored with Columbia University political scientist Robert S. Erikson. They didn't turn up definitive evidence, concluding, "our data and tools are not up to the task of making a compelling statistical argument for an effect."
Challenge to halt implementation of an Indiana state law that would have purged voters without notice based on unreliable third-party data from the Crosscheck program.
It's a sign of our shadowy times that the latest regulatory "reform" bill hasn't been laughed out of Washington. Same goes for the latest bankers' complaint, this time about being asked to cover their own bets. And if you think it's bad now, wait and see what happens if Romney takes over.
Think "global catastrophe."
While bank-friendly politicians offer insipid legislation, the world economy is still at risk. And it could get worse.
5. Will old-school voter intimidation and suppression come into play?
This refers to all the steps that have been taken by the GOP in recent years to complicate the voting process, discourage participation and scare off new voters.
Of course, no one should attempt to vote if he or she is not legally registered, but documented cases of actual voter fraud are rare. True the Vote is aiming to train as many as one million poll “observers,” and the scope of that effort far exceeds any real problem of illegal voting; instead, it seems intended to intimidate voters. As True the Vote’s top organizer reportedly told recruits during a training session in South Florida, their job is to make voters feel as if they are “driving and seeing the police following you.” This isn’t a civics lesson.
WASHINGTON -- More than half of the nation's 400 richest citizens have contributed money to help elect President Barack Obama or former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to the White House. These members of the Forbes 400, who boast a combined net worth of $1.7 trillion -- more than 10 percent of the country's gross domestic product -- have donated more to affect the outcome of the presidential race than ever before.
Whatever your opinion of the election’s outcome, there seems to be have been a lot of agreement this year with President Obama’s assertion that the voting process itself is something “we have to fix.” One place to get a bird’s-eye view of Election Day chaos—besides your local polling place—was at one of the call centers set up by the Election Protection Coalition, a collection of voting and civil-rights advocates that runs a hotline, 1-866-OUR-VOTE, to help voters on Election Day.
Just sixty-one individuals gave $285.2 million to Super PACs in the 2012 elections, contributing the same amount as 1,425,500 small grassroots donors to the major party presidential candidates, according to a new report from Demos and U.S. PIRG.
This report, the fourth in a series, focuses on "the overwhelming influence of a tiny number of wealthy donors."
