These documents have been processed with Adobe Acrobat to produce searchable text. A valuable summary is at A Collusion Reading Diary: What Did the Senate Intelligence Committee Find?
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Category: Politics
Senate Intelligence Committee Reports on Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election
Republicans Will Encourage Voting Before Election Day
This article, written by Walter Olson and published on Cato Institute, discusses a significant shift in the Republican Party’s stance on voting methods. Former President Donald Trump, who once criticized alternate voting methods as prone to fraud and urged Republicans to vote on Election Day, and the GOP are now encouraging the use of various balloting methods, including vote by mail, early in-person voting, and the use of drop boxes. This change is largely seen as positive, allowing campaigns to allocate resources more efficiently and appealing to a broader range of constituents. However, the article also raises concerns about the potential risks associated with third-party ballot collection, emphasizing the need to balance convenience in voting with maintaining the secrecy and security of ballots.
Olson, Walter. “Republicans Will Encourage Voting Before Election Day.” Cato Institute, 22 Sep. 2023, https://www.cato.org/blog/republicans-will-encourage-voting-election-day
How Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Sells Misleading Ideas
This article delves into the misleading rhetoric and tactics employed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist and presidential candidate. Kennedy has been known to use a method called “data dumping” where he overwhelms listeners with a barrage of numbers, acronyms, and methodologies to falsely suggest that vaccine injuries are widespread. The New York Times analyzed numerous interviews and found that Kennedy often uses these rhetorical devices to spread misinformation on topics like vaccines, 5G technology, and global farming. (more…)
Voting by Congressional District
Classifying congressional districts by density, then plotting percent voting for Donald J. Trump. (more…)
Presidential Data Explorer Updated
Explore the economic record of presidents, starting with Harry S Truman. Updated with recent data. (more…)
Election Deniers in Kansas
Some candidates for high office in Kansas believe in the lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. (more…)
Kansas jobs since pandemic
Examining the effect of the pandemic on Kansas jobs using industry groups.
These charts show data from January 2019 through January 2021. Data is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, part of the United States Department of Labor. The industry groupings are as defined by BLS. This data is adjusted for seasonality.
The first chart shows the count of jobs in each industry. The vertical axis is different for each industry. This is useful for seeing how many jobs are in each category. For the interactive versions of the chart, click here. Click charts for larger versions.
The second chart expresses the same data as percent change since January 2019. The vertical scale is the same for each industry. This chart lets us see the relative change in jobs. We can observe the large drop in Leisure and Hospitality followed by a rebound, but not up to the pre-pandemic level. This is an example of the “inverted square root” recovery, named after the shape of the math symbol. Some industries experienced a drop, and then stayed at or near the lower level. Information shows this trend, as well as manufacturing. For the interactive versions of the chart, click here.
The final chart shows the percent change from the previous month, with the same vertical scale for each industry. For the interactive versions of the chart, click here.