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SEE FULL SIZE INTERACTIVE MAP AT SITE>.................... Idaho, Montana and Florida saw the highest population growth among U.S. states between 2020-2022, per new U.S. Census Bureau data, while New York, Illinois and Louisiana suffered the most shrinkage. The big picture: The past few years have been especially turbulent for population trends, with the COVID-19 pandemic affecting birth and death rates, interstate and international migration, and more. By the numbers: Idaho's population grew by nearly 4.9%, while that of Montana and Florida grew by 3.3% and 3.0%, respectively. Utah and South Carolina came in just a hair under 3%. New York,...

A new study says Democrats watch more TV, but dedicated sports fans are more likely to vote for Republican candidates. The survey, from National Media Inc. using data from Nielsen and Arbitron, concludes that media buyers looking to target conservative viewers should dedicate ad dollars to sports telecasts -- particularly, the PGA Tour, college football and NASCAR. Of the 26 sports surveyed, 14 skewed Republican. "The average TV show will deliver 15-25% more Democrats compared to Republicans," said Will Feltus, senior vp of research at National Media, which specializes in buying ads for GOP clients. "The moral to the story...

Barack Obama threatens to drive political cartographers crazy. By attracting young people and African-Americans, he believes he can turn red states blue and upend our relatively stable political map. Obama may well win the November election on a wave of Democratic turnout and enthusiasm, but he will likely find that states don’t change their political stripes very easily. The 2000 and 2004 elections were remarkably similar. Forty-seven states voted for the same party in both elections. Only New Hampshire, which switched from Republican in 2000 to Democrat in 2004, and Iowa and New Mexico, which moved in the other direction,...

Check it out. United America: 2014, by Ben Maxwell, is now available on-line at both Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com. Here are URLs: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/104-5043457-9654302?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=united+america%3A+2014&Go.x=12&Go.y=9 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1424152739/sr=8-1/qid=1174668532/ref=olp_product_details/002-5395432-2642427?ie=UTF8&qid=1174668532&sr=8-1&seller= http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?WRD=united+america%3A+2014&z=y&r=1&cds2Pid=9481 http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9781424152735&itm=1

House of Representatives Many of us are familiar with the traditional election-night maps in which the fifty states of US are colored to indicate which political party won the largest number of votes in the state. Such maps are a helpful visual aid for representing the results of, for example, presidential elections, where the country votes state-by-state for the hopeful candidates. 2006 was not a presidential election year, but the country did vote in 2006 to elect a new House of Representatives. The appropriate map to represent the results of this election is a slightly less familiar one, the map...

Jobs are flocking to low-tax states for a reason. Individuals looking to open a new business, expand operations or market new products weigh the comparative costs and benefits of different locations. They evaluate local universities, transportation networks, labor skills, market size and even the weather. They also assess the policy climate. Economic freedom -- a favorable state tax, regulatory, and legal climate -- attracts entrepreneurs and capital, thereby increasing jobs and wages. In 2005, per capita personal income grew 31% faster in the 15 most economically free states than it did in the 15 states at the bottom of the...

Is America Still Red Vs. Blue, or Purpler? By ERIN McCLAM, AP National Writer1 hour, 41 minutes ago Dial back to a year or so ago, to the wrenching, vicious, partisan escapade that was Campaign 2004, to a time when we were told by a thousand pundits that America was deeply, hopelessly divided. And it felt that way: Family dinners became shouting matches. Bush and Kerry signs were snatched from yards. Blue and red were at war. But 12 months have passed since then, ample time for the nation to relearn the principles of civil discourse. We have had time...

After spending 10 days in London with friends who were outspoken about their disdain for President Bush's policies, Berns Rothchild came home wishing she had a way to show the world she didn't vote for him. "I sort of felt ashamed, and didn't really want to be associated with being an American," said Rothchild, who lives in New York City and voted for John Kerry. Her mother had a suggestion: bracelets, inspired by the Lance Armstrong Foundation's popular "LIVESTRONG" bands, that would signal opposition to Bush. Thousands of miles away, two women in Idaho had the same idea. So did...

Out of the mouth of children, as they say, comes some heartbreaking truths. This time it was high school students. But never mind, the concept holds. Also, apparently all American Government classes are not taught by socialist leaning teachers. There was a class of forty students. The students were broken down into four groups of ten. Each group was to have a few days to work on a "special" project and not to consult with anyone in any other group until the results were presented in class. What the four groups did not know is that each group was provided...

Scroll down the list, and pick a version of the "Thanksgiving Day PSA" to watch. The episode has some fun with the "Turduken" and takes some potshots at Michael Moore and the Fleeing to Canada crowd! You don't need to know anything about the story to appreciate it, but it's a good idea to have a broadband connection.

That America’s political center is to the right of every other modern democracy is nothing new, but why has it recently lurched so much further right? A belligerent cowboy president who says he’s doing God’s work seems on the verge of being elected to another term of office; both houses of Congress are in the hands of conservative Republicans who, thirty years ago, would have been considered wild extremists; most state governments are dominated by born-again bible-thumpers. To describe the recent takeover of America by the right wing of the Republican Party as a revolution is only a slight exaggeration....

That America’s political center is to the right of every other modern democracy is nothing new, but why has it recently lurched so much further right? A belligerent cowboy president who says he’s doing God’s work seems on the verge of being elected to another term of office; both houses of Congress are in the hands of conservative Republicans who, thirty years ago, would have been considered wild extremists; most state governments are dominated by born-again bible-thumpers. To describe the recent takeover of America by the right wing of the Republican Party as a revolution is only a slight exaggeration....

By Jim Abrams ASSOCIATED PRESS 11:01 a.m. October 5, 2004 WASHINGTON – Thirty states are poised to make abortion illegal within a year if the Supreme Court reversed its 1973 ruling establishing a woman's legal right to an abortion, an advocacy group said Tuesday. The Center for Reproductive Rights said some states have old laws on the books that would be triggered by the overturning of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision. Others have language in their state constitutions or strongly anti-abortion legislatures that would act quickly if the federal protection for abortion was ended and the issue reverted to...

It is the "Holy Grail" of horticulture and soon it could make the perfect present for Mother's Day: scientists have found a way to produce a blue rose.A chance discovery in a laboratory means that they will be able to create the blue rose "within a year" and it is expected to go on sale to the public soon after that.   How the blue rose could look Rose breeders and growers said that blue roses would be hugely popular and estimated that they would win five per cent - £35 million - of the £700 million international market for...

In reading other posts here on FR and in spending most of the day just reading (I'm a reporter), I am again struck how the US has split into two countries: "red" Bush America and "blue" Gore America. That's nit news. What's most compelling is how Bush America is increasingly having to prop-up the utterly failed Great Society/Gore America, and for just how much longer such a situation can exist. Item: teacher disciplined for telling Mexican kids in her US class to stop disrupting the class (she's a "racist" for so doing). The other kids in the class continue to...