LOS ANGELES COUNTY, CALIF. -- In this age of smartphones, touch-screens and the Internet, Los Angeles County’s 50-year-old voting system of punch cards and user guides ranks closer to the era of chalk marks and blackboards. Now, the most populous county in the U.S. is less than one year away from completing the design stage of an overhaul that could mark the beginning of a new way of voting in California and beyond.

We've avoided a government shutdown... for now. With the passing of an eleventh-hour continuing resolution, Congress managed to kick the can down the road until December 11.

This cycle of political brinksmanship – exacerbated by an uncompromising group of congressional bullies who dig their heels in for the sake of spectacle – seems to becoming a regular commodity in American politics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZXMXqYI0j4

It is a story that is literally jaw dropping. Soldiers who served in Afghanistan stripped of their command for standing up against Afghan men who were sexually abusing young boys.

Why? Because the abusers, our government said, were the good guys.

If those are the good guys who are the bad ones?

This is a Reality Check you won’t see anywhere else.

I try not to be a single-issue voter. I methodically compare and contrast the voting records of those seeking my vote. However, I have carried one policy stance with me from the time I was a young high school idealist to my current state of cynical curmudgeonism: I am staunchly opposed to war.

Of all the firestorms that could be reignited on a Friday morning, this is definitely one of the popular ones lately.

Some groups were horrified that the pope wasted 10 minutes on a low-level county clerk who refused to issue gay wedding licenses. Others saw it as just another victory for the LGBT movement.

Where we need to clear our heads in America is in this crazy association that politics and religion are equivalent actions.

The first installment garnered many comments responding to the headline and not the article:  blanket support for Bernie or accusing him of being a socialist, communist and/or Marxist. The goal here is to evaluate parts of the platform on their individual merit. People differ on what the role of government should be. Hopefully we can agree that we need to prioritize.

CALIFORNIA -- It is hard to believe that the first state in the country's history to have two women serving as U.S. senators at the same time might have a problem attracting women to run for public office, but that's the situation in California.

Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer were the first women ever to be U.S. senators from the same state at the same time. New Hampshire and Washington now can also make that claim.

In the first week since its launch, the petition to gather support for a town hall featuring Sens. Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul has exploded.

In addition to the thousands of signatures collected, Senator Paul confirmed with Truth In Media that he would in fact participate in a town hall with Senator Sanders.

“We need an insurgency of the rational: a generation of Americans who are fed up with the current political system, who believe we can do better, and most important, who are ready to do something about it.”. — Charles Wheelan - Founder of The Centrist Project and author of “The Centrist Manifesto”

Millions of people intuitively understand the four simple words Mr.

The cost of prescription drugs in the U.S. became an issue of concern after the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, Martin Shkreli, increased the per-pill price of Daraprim – used to treat patients suffering from toxoplasmosis – from $13.50 to $750.