"We need to give  something and people to be passionate about, who they know can lead and put our country ahead of political parties, use facts and common sense to solve problems, and ultimately not be influenced by the special interests who control both parties." - Greg Orman, 2014 US Senate candidate

Our politics are in a sad state. Most people would characterize it as extremely partisan and polarized, more so than we've experienced in our lifetime or possibly even the past century.

Every day we read stories about how one side is "fighting" to prevent the other side from doing something they think is disastrous. The words "fighting," "struggling," "blocking," "war," "winning," and "losing" are in headline after headline.

Remarking on the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia over the weekend, Julian Assange tweeted a picture of it with the words, "The new face of America is eerily familiar."

https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/896777829580517376

With all due respect to Mr. Assange for his advancement of truly relevant journalism in our era, what we all saw happen in Charlottsville, Virginia is not the new face of America.

There is a new party on the rise in Utah, and it wants to end taxpayer funding for closed partisan primary elections.

Utah uses a semi-closed primary system for statewide and congressional offices. This means the parties get to choose whether or not to allow unaffiliated voters to participate in "their" taxpayer-funded primaries.

Democrats currently allow registered independents to participate in their party's primaries. Republicans do not. Yet the unaffiliated voters barred from these crucial elections still contribute public tax dollars to their funding.

After the violence in Charlottesville over the weekend, the Department of Justice has opened a civil-rights investigation into a deadly car-ramming incident that witnesses said targeted counter-protesters at a white nationalist and alt-right rally in Virginia.

AG Jeff Sessions said:

"The violence and deaths in Charlottesville strike at the heart of American law and justice. When such actions arise from racial bigotry and hatred, they betray our core values and cannot be tolerated.”

5 Key Ways to Bridge the Hyper-Partisan Divide on Infrastructure

Centrist Project co-founder and author of the Centrist Manifesto, Charles Wheelan, identified 5 key ways lawmakers can put partisanship aside and come together on infrastructure.

Wheelan published the first monthly column post on IVN Friday, August 11. His series is about how lawmakers can find common ground on the biggest issues facing the country.

I just finished reading “Trump, Putin, and The New Cold War” that appeared in the May 6 issue of The New Yorker (the online title is different in the magazine).

Written by Evan Osnos, David Remnick, and Joshua Yaffa, it is likely the longest article I have ever read in the magazine -- which I’ve been reading for many years. I note this to underscore my judgment as to the article’s importance.

Remember all that talk about infrastructure during the 2016 presidential campaign?

America needs massive new investments in infrastructure: safer bridges; modern sewers; a more efficient electricity grid; better transportation options; an upgraded air traffic control system; and so on.

Building infrastructure would create jobs in the short run. More important, it would make us richer and more productive as a nation in the long run.

The Republican Party needs to be saved, according to a handful of budding politicians in New Jersey, who label themselves FIRE Republicans. They aim to pull the party away from entrenched candidates and extremism, and back to the people's party of Lincoln and Roosevelt.

"If a house is on fire, and you run away from it, it burns down the whole neighborhood," said founder, Dana Wefer. "Republicans are on fire, and we need to put it out so it doesn't take down our whole democracy. We need to run toward the fire."

Statistics are pointing to a another steep rise in opioid deaths within the next 10 years. To illustrate the point of just how critical the crisis has become, in the state of Massachusetts, 90% of all drug overdoses are attributed to opioids. In Connecticut, the figure stands at 86%.

Days after his administration said it wasn't ready to declare it an emergency, President Trump said he’s drafting paperwork to declare the opioid crisis a "national emergency."