In his first State of the Union address, President Trump praised members of the military while calling for an increased defense budget in the face of another government shutdown. The continuing resolution passed last month only funded the military, and other government operations through February 8, a deadline that is fast approaching.

An unprecedented gathering of the brightest minds from the right and left with one common purpose: fix American politics. Leaders in advocacy, policy, politics, legal, movement-building, and popular culture share their knowledge and experience to build lasting solutions that inspire change.

President Trump rarely received a standing ovation from the entirety of the audience at his first State of the Union address. One of the rare moments came when he spoke about knocking down America’s outrageous drug prices.

“One of my greatest priorities is to reduce the price of prescription drugs. In many other countries, these drugs cost far less than what we pay in the United States. That is why I have directed my administration to make fixing the injustice of high drug prices one of our top priorities. Prices will come down.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLBklg_fE18

Video Credit: CBS News

The Equal Vote Coalition is proposing an innovative new voting system that its leaders say will not only revolutionize the way we conduct elections, but will provide the fixes we need for a clearly broken system.

The voting system is called STAR (Score Then Automatic Runoff) Voting, which was originally proposed in 2014.

Yesterday, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffet, and JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon announced they are forming a partnership to use their combined purchasing power to drive down health care costs for their employees, and perhaps all Americans.

Can the world's wealthiest do what the world's most powerful could not?

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It's funny that you won't hear just about anyone say it anywhere else, not even a lot of independent voters. It's funny because people treat the State of the Union Address like a magnificent, sanctified ritual of our democracy, when it's obviously absolute insanity.

To begin with, it's predictable. You know exactly what's going to happen going in, so it's incredibly boring too.

"I think Kevin Towers is THE most significant figure in the health of Major League Baseball." ~ FMR. State Senator Steve Peace

For those lucky enough to call Kevin Towers a friend and colleague, they all say he was much more than a notably successful MLB General Manager.

Rare in professional sports, the 56-year-old Towers, whose life ended after a battle with Thyroid Cancer, was a man who rarely veered from his principles despite enormous political and business pressures brought by Major League Baseball.

THE PRINCIPLED MAN

President Donald Trump gave his first State of the Union address Tuesday night where he touched on several topics in the roughly 90-minute speech, including a surging economy, infrastructure needs, immigration, terrorism and wars abroad, and more. After the speech, a CBS / YouGov poll found that most people who watched generally approved of it -- including independents.

When Pat Tiberi finally got around to resigning after 17 years in office representing our district, he had more than six million dollars in his campaign account. Had he chosen to ride things out indefinitely, he could easily have financed another four hotly contested races to retain his seat without raising another dime.

And he hasn't had a hotly contested race for more than a decade. Why?

Because he had six million dollars in his account. For that reason, he has quietly sat on the Ways and Means Committee presiding over America's headlong pursuit toward financial ruin.