The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, more formally known as ISIS, continued its assault on Iraq’s government and the Shi’ite population this week, inching ever closer to Baghdad. The extremist group of Jihadist Sunni fighters seek to establish a caliphate — a unified Islamic government led by an established caliph who would be a successor to Muhammad’s political authority — across most of Syria and Iraq. The borders between Iraq and Syria have already been captured and are under ISIS control along with large parts of the two countries.

“For the insurgents, capturing the frontier is a dramatic step towards the goal of erasing the modern border altogether and building a caliphate across swathes of Syria and Iraq” said a recent Reuters report after the border and other territories were captured by ISIS.

After the group of around 800 Sunni rebel fighters launched from Syria, capturing Mosul and other parts of Northern Iraq earlier in June, insurgents from surrounding areas and captured territories joined forces with ISIS, increasing its size to a now reported over 6000. This poses a threat to the national security of Iraq as well as the regional security of all Middle Eastern nations as the group primarily targets pro-government factions.

“What happened is a disaster by any standard. The presence of these terrorist groups in this vast province … threatens not just the security and unity of Iraq, but the whole Middle East” said Parliament Speaker Osama al-Nujaifi when questioned about the significance of the current situation.

While the UN and has officially expressed its condemnation of the group’s actions and accused the Islamic State of human rights violations, ISIS does not consider itself to be a terrorist organization or group at all; instead it considers itself to be a legitimate state at war with surrounding nations. It also takes advantage of the large scale lack of military resistance in Northern Iraq.

“Recent assessments by Western officials and military experts indicate that about a quarter of Iraq’s military forces are ‘combat ineffective,’ its airforce is miniscule, morale among troops is low and its leadership suffers from widespread corruption.”

– New York Times

When 800 ISIS fighters moved in on Mosul, which was occupied by over 30,000 armed Iraqi militants, the Iraq military fled. They fled so fast that they left behind a ton of military equipment, including US funded weapons and humvees. The US has spent over 20 billion dollars training and equipping the military of Iraq in preparation for our departure, but it appears that has been ineffective. And with The Islamic State rapidly expanding its ranks and heading towards Baghdad, Iraq prepares for a possible all out civil war.

The Shi’ite dominated government and military made little effort to hold territory in Northern Iraq when the Sunni extremists came because Shi’ites simply aren’t willing to die for that land. Baghdad and Southern Iraq is heavily populated by Shi’ites though, and if ISIS continues on their current path and reaches Baghdad, the Shi’ites will fight to defend their people and land.

Rising public interest in issues concerning lobbying and the rights of corporations to finance political campaigns in the U.S. has recently been putting pressure on legislators of all political affiliation to take action. Democratic and Republican legislators alike in California yielded to public demand and approved resolution AJR1 on Monday, which asks congress to call for a constitutional convention that would draft an amendment imposing limits on corporate spending in politics.

The only way the constitution has been amended in the past is through the Congress-initiated process in which two-thirds of the House and Senate pass a proposed amendment, and then three-fourths of state legislatures approve it. However, if two-thirds of all states call for a constitutional convention, Congress is obligated to convene one; this is the course of action being pursued by advocates of the policy.

California is the second state to propose such a convention after Vermont, who, back in early May of this year, made the same proposal. Two states is a good start, but the movement will need at least 34 states to get behind it in order to be successful. Wolf PAC, the political group leading the charge on this issue, is confident that those numbers can be achieved through hard work and consistency.

“And now California, the largest state in the union, is on the board. You think we can’t get the other states? Please keep thinking that- I’m begging you to keep thinking that; because we’re coming for you, okay? We’re not going to stop until we get this done” said Cenk Uygur, founder of Wolf PAC, on his online news show The Young Turks after the decision was announced.

Another goal outlined by the resolution is to overturn the Citizen’s United case of January 2010, in which a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling claimed that the restriction of independent political spending by corporations or labor unions would violate freedom of speech.

“I doubt our founding fathers had the free-speech rights of multinational and foreign corporations in mind when they drafted the First Amendment,” said Assemblyman Mike Gatto, D-Los Angeles, author of the resolution.

“In every state there are people upset about money in politics,” including some Republicans, Gatto went on to say, suggesting that this is only the beginning of a much larger battle which he and other concerned legislators and political groups intend to win.

It would appear the numbers are on their side as well. When Wolf PAC began in 2011, there was already a rising dissatisfaction amongst the population with the state of the GOP-controlled House of Representatives.

A Gallup Poll released in 2011 stated that “67% of Americans are dissatisfied with the size and influence of major corporations in the country today, the highest level since Gallup first asked this question in 2001.”

At times in the past, Gatto said, when a growing number of states passed resolutions calling for constitutional changes – most recently, the repeal of Prohibition – Congress responded by approving an amendment and submitting it to the states.

This keeps advocates hopeful, thinking back to the amendments of past generations, and the fight for free and fair elections is expected to continue.