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The Voter’s Speakeasy featuring unbiased reporting and insight into life at Vote Smart from our staff, interns, and volunteers.

Get Smart on Defense

2012 July 18

At the beginning of this week, 67 years ago, the United States completed the first ever test of a nuclear weapon. A landmark moment in the history of this country's defense – and defense spending. By some estimates, the entire project cost over $2 billion (over $21 billion in today's dollars), which, considering the already tight defense budget for the ongoing war effort, was no small sum.
 
Today defense, and defense spending, are still major issues. The ongoing conflict in Syria, and the U.S. response, has elicited strong reactions from congressmen, while President Obama has met with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the issue (among many other things).
 
And news from Syria can be set against the back drop of a possible vote this week in the house regarding “the sequester” – a variety of automatic cuts, some in our defense spending, that will take effect next January, as a result of S 365, the Budget Control Act of 2011 (you've probably heard it called “The Debt Ceiling Debate”).
 
At votesmart.org you can find out how your representatives feel about defense and defense spending in a few different ways:
 
You can see how they've been rated by special interests groups that fall under our Defense, National Security, Military Issues, or Foreign Aid and Policies issues category.
 
You can see if they've responded to the defense-related questions we asked on our Political Courage Test regarding spending cuts and our involvement in Afghanistan.
 
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May Common Ground E-Newsletter

2012 May 17

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Who is Keith Russell Judd?

2012 May 10

As media outlets and bloggers scrambled to find the back story on Democratic Presidential Primary Candidate Keith Judd, who won a surprising 41% of the vote in a West Virginia primary, against his more well-known and better-funded opponent, President Barack Obama, it began to emerge that only one (very) reputable source had bothered to reach out to this possible nominee – us. 

March Common Ground E-Newsletter

2012 March 15

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Going for broke: could GOP convention elect nominee?

2012 March 05

What if, following Super Tuesday, all four GOP candidates are still in the game and no clear frontrunner has emerged? 

Challenges in Arizona: the Special Election in CD-8

2012 February 14

Following the resignation of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Arizona was faced with a unique situation in holding elections to replace the former Congresswoman.

Common Ground E-Newsletter, February

2012 February 07

GOP field narrowing, but are candidates really gone?

2012 January 20

The South Carolina Republican Presidential Preference Primary is scheduled for Saturday, January, 21st and while in most of our minds there are only four candidates still vying for the GOP nomination, one look at the ballot will tell a slightly different story. 

Oregon major party candidates lacking political courage

2012 January 09

We released the 2012 Political Courage Test results today for Oregon's special election showing neither major party congressional candidate running for the state's 1st Congressional District seat was willing to answer even the most basic issue-related questions addressed inside the Test.

Iowa has spoken

2012 January 05

As expected, the Iowa Caucus, the first nominating contest of the 2012 election season, proved to shake things up inside the GOP race.

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