This week on A Civil Assessment we meet the award-winning election journalist Lulu Friesdat.

T.J. and Lulu discuss her history reporting on elections, her documentary “Holler Back” about voters who did not vote in 2004, the annual tech conference DEF CON where hackers broke into election machines in under 2 hours, bipartisan election security, the Wisconsin, Georgia, and Florida recounts, and more.

A characterizing attribute of fascism is the suppression of views and voices.

Enter the ACLU of Virginia. Viewed as a traditional liberal voice for the oppressed and voiceless, the civil liberties organization last week came out in support of the First Amendment right of neo-Nazis and white supremacists to march in Charlottesville.

Since the horrific events of this last weekend, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe has spoken out against the ACLU’s position of supporting the march’s location and the ability to have it in such a populated part of town.

Despite President Trump's condemnation of the KKK and white supremacist groups, a group of protestors chanted “No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA!” before pulling a statue to the ground.

Some demonstrators then kicked or punched the fallen statue. The Confederate monument stood outside of a court house in Durham, North Carolina.

"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.