Articles that are timeless – that apply to ongoing issues and situations.
A Vox “First-Person” story by Richard Becker On a bitterly cold day in late January, I knocked on the door of a home in Louisville, Kentucky’s Camp Taylor neighborhood. I was running for state representative in a Democratic primary and was spreading the word about my candidacy. Camp Taylor
A recent survey sponsored by the Freedom Forum Institute found that 40% of Americans could not name ANY of the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment. Spoiler Alert!If you came here AFTER taking our First Amendment quiz, then read on. But if you haven’t taken the quiz yet,
M ike Petrilli is one of the self-appointed leaders of the corporate reform of education movement, and also has a day job as president of the Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank with a focus on education. His bio says that “he is one of the nation’s most trusted
You say you want really good journalism? You say you want reporting that is objective, even-handed, and well-done? You say you believe that the press is part of protecting us from government and corporate overreach? You say that investigative reporting is key to uncovering secrets that harm us in some
Here are the Ten Commandments for Voting, based on a list of Do’s and Don’t’s provided by Secretary of State Grimes. Follow these for a good experience when you go vote tomorrow. 1. Verify your voter registration status before you head to the polls. (GoVoteKY.com) 2.
Here is a quick Explainer of the three types of retirement plans under discussion in the Kentucky pension debate. Note that this is a summary, and not an in-depth discussion. Defined benefit (traditional pension) A defined-benefit plan is a plan that promises a certain benefit upon retirement: “work for us
1) No Expansion of Choice for Low-Income Families Myth: Education Tax Credits will give low-income children trapped in failing public schools new choices, including the opportunity to go to private school. Facts: * Proposed tax credit levels of $200 to $1,000 fall far short of the average private school tuition
If you’re one of those people who hand your taxes to someone else to prepare, the talk about “tax credit” vs “tax deduction” may seem like just more accountant mumbo-jumbo. But as a citizen, you need to know the difference, so you can decide if a particular deduction or
Soon after the 2016 election, Rachel Maddow listed ten hallmarks of American Democracy that make it uniquely American. If any of these are threatened or eliminated, we have lost a key part of our national character, and a key freedom that we cannot take for granted. I thought it would
In the earlier articles in this Election Security series [https://forwardky.com/are-our-elections-secure/], I aimed to be as objective as possible, just stating the facts as given. I even went so far as to have the election officials review the process descriptions, just to be sure they were correct. This
This is the third article in our four-part series on election security in Kentucky [https://www.forwardky.com/are-our-elections-secure/]. Election security is a three-legged stool: security of the voter registration data [https://forwardky.com/is-your-voter-data-secure/] (the voter files), security of the voting itself [https://www.forwardky.com/can-your-vote-be-hacked/], and security
In our first article on election security [https://forwardky.com/is-our-voter-data-secure/], we tried to learn what steps are taken to keep the state’s voter registration data secure. Unfortunately, we were unable to get much information from the Secretary of State’s office beyond “trust us – it’s safe.” It
Election security is a three-legged stool: voter registration security, voting security, and vote tabulation security. Each of those “legs” must be secure for us to say with confidence that our elections are secure. In this series, we will look at each leg in turn to see just how secure it
One year ago, we saw an election where a foreign country and its partners not only tried to influence voters through propaganda, but actively tried to hack election systems around the country. The 2018 elections are a year away. As we look back at 2016 and ahead to 2018, citizens
As Governor Bevin is about to call one or more special sessions of the General Assembly to deal with the issues of pensions and tax reform, it is appropriate to review how the Kentucky General Assembly operates. The structure and general procedures of the General Assembly are specified in the
As citizens of the United States are in uncharted waters with the ascendency of Donald Trump to the Presidency of the United States, we are beginning to ask whether our institutions are strong enough to contain the authoritarian tendencies of an erratic President. A number of those institutions have indeed
