This week, T.J. O’Hara is joined by Lenny Mendonca on the IVN podcast, A Civil Assessment.

Lenny Mendonca is a Senior Partner Emeritus from the Washington D.C. and San Francisco offices of McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm. He is a Lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and co-chair of California Forward. He is also an advisor to several entrepreneurs. Over the course of his career he helped dozens of government, corporate, and nonprofit clients solve their most difficult management challenges.

Atlanta City Councilor Mary Norwood could be well on her way to becoming the city’s first independent mayor and one of the most prominent independent elected officials in the country on Tuesday.

According to a survey of likely Atlanta voters released by WSB-TV Friday, independent Councilwoman Mary Norwood held a 6-point lead over her opponent, Councilor Keisha Lance Bottoms, heading into the December 5 runoff.

As the tax reform bill goes to conference and congressional leaders look for revenue to solidify the coalition of Republicans supporting tax reform, the Democrats are fully engaged in their decades-old attack on the GOP for “cutting taxes for the rich.”

An extraordinary move by giant chip maker Broadcom to take control of San Diego based Qualcomm.

In a story first reported in the New York Times, Broadcom officially announced a hostile takeover bid for Qualcomm Monday.The move sets the stage for a proxy battle over Broadcom's$105 billion bid for largest maker of smartphone chips.

Read our centrist recap for the week below. We shine a light on the spin and useless stories from the Left and Right and detail what you should focus on, before people can pull wool over your eyes.

Republican leadership under House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has set a record for the most closed rules in a session by not allowing members to add amendments to a bill for the 49th time. That record makes this the most closed Congress in U.S. history for members to debate and amend bills.

In 2015, Ryan promised an open process during his first press conference as Speaker:

THE GAME OF THE DAY SATURDAY WAS OHIO STATE/WISCONSIN, and the Badgers losing, 27-21, seems fitting, since it adds to the already chaotic state of a chaotic season.

Who’s in?

Who out?

Who’s up?

Who’s down?

Can we do this dance all-around?

What is almost certain, Clemson will be ranked number one in the polls by the AP and coaches, and in the one that matters most — College Football Poll.

In September, in what seems to be just the latest in a string of financial issues for the VA, the Inspector General of the VA released a memo detailing $90 million in overpayments to the middlemen who process payments to civilian providers contracted to provided care to America’s veterans under the VA Choice program.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGXQ_TWkfmM

Independent US Senator Angus King was brought on MSNBC's Morning Joe Friday to talk about the GOP tax reform bill scheduled to be voted on. King says the process for moving the bill forward has been the "worst ever."

For the past few days, the liberal media has been going haywire over a New York Times profile of a white nationalist. The Times was forced to issue multiple responses to accusations that they were normalizing white supremacy, and even retroactively altered the title of the article in response to public pressure.