June 2012
15 posts
4 tags
Top Ten Things You Still Might Not Know About...
By Ian Rosoff
1. Ten Percent Tax on Indoor Tanning Booths Obamacare (or the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) declares war on the Jersey Shore. Our Supreme Court upheld a tax on self-inflicted cancer. 2. Children are Covered by their Parents’ Health Insurance until they’re 26 Can’t deny I’m pretty happy about this one. Obamacare also ends the whole concept of pre-existing...
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Soccernomics – Everything You Need to Know About...
By Jeremy Merkel
For many Americans, neither the European debt crisis nor soccer are of serious concern. Yet in the midst of Europe’s greatest economic meltdown in recent history, the 2012 Euro Cup has been underway, and Americans have been following the tournament more closely than ever. Of the 29 matches played so far, 1.14 million viewers have tuned in to ESPN, a 63% jump since 2008. Watching...
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Forty Years Later: The Watergate Legacy
By Jeremy Merkel
We are a day late and maybe a dollar or two short but we would be remiss if we, a politically focused group, didn’t acknowledge the 40th anniversary of Watergate and the birth of the “gate” suffix for every crisis in the Beltway.
While every visit to Washington DC drives tourists to its most famous attractions: the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington monument, the White House, and...
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Lou Aronson's interview with Campaigns & Election... →
For Lou Aronson, inspiration struck four years ago during the heat of the 2008 campaign. He listened as his neighbors traded complaints about the overwhelming number of robocalls streaming into their phones—all except one who proudly proclaimed that since he no longer had a landline, he hadn’t endured a single political call all year.
“I turned to one of my neighbors, who’s a political...
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(Un)Precedented?
By Andrew Beilein
The Supreme Court (SCOTUS) is poised to rule on Obamacare this week, and the argument that seems to dominate the headlines is the constitutionality of the individual mandate. Essentially, the right says the mandate is the first of its kind and beyond the scope of the Commerce Clause, while the left says that the government has the power to regulate the health care market—but...
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FUNDRAISING BY TEXT IN 2012
By Ian Rosoff
Picture the democratic or republican convention, after every speaker, a number will flash across the thirty foot big screen with a number, and a texting frenzy will ensue, all with sms messages delivering micro-donations to candidate Obama or Romney.
The Federal Election Commission handed down their ruling that political campaigns can now accept text donations. Our friends at...
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New York City’s War on Pop and Pot
By Jeremy Merkel
Just a few weeks after New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed a law to ban soft drinks and sugary beverages larger than 16 ounces, the Big Apple is making headlines again with more social reform. Last Monday Governor Andrew Cuomo introduced legislation to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana, lowering the penalty from a misdemeanor to a non-criminal...
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Political Boxing: Obama, Romney, and sports
By Ian Rosoff
President Obama, a professed sport fan was hopefully figuring out how to fix the economy this weekend, but perhaps he tuned into HBO to watch the Pacquiao v. Bradley fight. And if he did, he witnessed a clear injustice. The fight was a travesty of judging even by boxing standards, and the decision made conspiracy theorists out of everyone and anyone who saw Pac Man knock Bradley’s...
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Personal Democracy Forum #PDF2012
We will be attending Personal Democracy Forum in NYC today and tomorrow. It’s my second time attending PDF and Lou’s first. Given that it is an election year and we’re not overshadowed by any particular campaign’s presence or aura, I am expecting a pretty exciting and engaging two days with people talking about big ideas on how technology is impacting democracy and...
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It's All Fair Game
By Lou Aronson
Lots of chatter has filled the airwaves and op-ed pages lately on Mayor Cory Booker and whether his statements regarding the attack by President Obama on Mitt Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital are appropriate. Kathleen Parker raised the issue in the context of truth versus problem solving. Then Eugene Robinson raised the issue of Romney’s attack’s on Obama’s spending record by flat...
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Who Will Win the Presidential Vote Among Veterans?
By Sam Pauken
The veteran vote will prove to be one of the important swing constituencies in the 2012 race and both campaigns. When recent polls showed some pretty significant differences in approval ratings for President Obama and Mitt Romney among veterans, we had to dig a little deeper to figure out what was going on.
What do the polls say?
According to a recent Gallup poll released two...
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Why Are States Limiting The Hispanic Vote?
By Daniel Shapiro
As the Presidential election rapidly approaches, millions of Americans are struggling with the question of which candidate to vote for. Unfortunately, in many states, individuals are not facing the difficulties of comparing stances on the economy or foreign policy, but rather, are faced with the obstacle of being able to vote at all.
In 2011, thirty-four states introduced...
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Wisconsin Recall Elections: Cause and Effect
By Jeremy Merkel
Lynn Frazier, North Dakota, 1921 Gray Davis, California, 2003
This is the list of governors in US history who have been removed from office through a recall election. Today we could see an addition to this list, when Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker faces off against Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett.
Walker drew national headlines for his decision to end collective bargaining rights...
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