Voter dissatisfaction with the Republican and Democratic Parties isn't going away. A recent Gallup poll reports that an all-time high 61 percent of respondents say both parties are doing such a bad job that a third party is needed. The number has remained relatively in the same ballpark since 2013, when it skyrocketed from 46 percent in 2012 to 60 percent.

Focusing on whether a football player takes a knee or the president chooses to tweet about it misses a point.

Our country is absorbed in partisan controversy, and the media plays right along.

Kneel to fight for social justice? That's freedom of speech.

Stand to recognize the people who have given their lives to keep us safe? That's freedom of speech.

But what about free speech during the most important political dialogue between candidates and the American people ... the presidential debates?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlpmQJvHv10

Senator John McCain said on on CBS's "60 Minutes" Sunday that his brain cancer prognosis is "very, very serious." The Arizona Republican added that his doctors told him "it's a very poor prognosis," with a survival rate as low as 3 percent, or 14 percent in a best case scenario, according to some doctors.

Orange County set a participation record in the last presidential election, with more than 80% of registered voters casting ballots, the highest percentage in 40 years. High schools in the OC, however, are not setting any records on a key test of engaging young adults in the political process.

Is anything less immutable these days than a political party’s orthodoxy? We all like to mourn the death of compromise, but the truth is this: even the Republican and Democratic parties aren’t that far apart once everybody’s working from the same set of facts.

One way or another, the following six political leaders broke with their party’s orthodoxy. Some wish to pursue real and lasting change in health care, while others were perhaps a little more cynical about their motivations. Whatever the case, health care is here to stay as a household issue in the United States.

Five government officials were fired and 13 criminal cases were filed against local and state officials in Flint, Michigan, resulting from the 2014 Flint water crisis that put 100,000 residents at risk.

An investigation found that the drinking water source for the city was switched to the Flint river in 2014, and, compounding the problem, officials failed to apply corrosion inhibitors to the water. The investigation also found elected officials knowingly "dismissed and belittled attempts" to control the outbreak.