As political candidates of both major parties continue to underwhelm as potential “agents of change,” ballot initiatives grow more interesting.  According to BallotPedia, 90 ballot questions have been certified for 2010 spots in 31 sates. They estimate that if 2010 is an average year, another 130-140 will ultimately qualify. In California’s upcoming June 8 election: [...]

Now that President Obama and the rest of the Democratic leadership no longer need to hide from their base that the new health care law is in fact a pro-health insurance industry Republican plan as part of a push to enact the law, they are openly admitting the plan’s true origins. This bill is a [...]

When President Obama signed the Student Lending and Fiscal Responsibility Act today, it dealt an enormous blow to Wall Street banks. He deserves huge props for that.  I’m not sure people know how big a victory it was. Sallie Mae spent $3 million on lobbyists last year, and got none of what they wanted.  Zero, [...]

Last week, after crazies like Jim DeMint, Pete Hoekstra and Michelle Bachmann started the REPEALgasm, a group of slightly less crazy Republicans, including John Cornyn, Jon Kyl and Newt Gingrich, began to backpedal. Now, Lamar Smith (R-TX), who himself signed on to the repealgasm, admits REPEAL! is all just kabuki.

One of the problems with policy polling in this country is that regular Americans simply don’t understand policy–which is often not their fault. Some pieces of legislation, like the recently enacted health care law, are so complex, I doubt a majority of professional Washington DC journalists fully understand it. It seems people latch on to [...]

There is a ballot measure in California to legalize and tax weed this fall, making it legal for anyone over 21 to possess up to an ounce and cultivate whatever they can fit in a 5 x 5 foot plot. It would also allow cities and counties to decide whether to allow sales and tax [...]

With health care and student loan reform passed, one of the next tasks Congress will soon take up is the annual budget. The “budget resolution” is a non-binding resolution by Congress outlining how they plan to spend money. The budget resolution is not law (so doesn’t need to be signed by the President), and, as [...]

Not a surprise really that upon passage of the health care bill, Max Baucus would openly thank Liz Fowler, the former Wellpoint VP, for writing it: Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, there are a flood of emotions going through all of us today as we pass this reconciliation bill which improves upon the bill the President [...]

In 2007, Glenn Greenwald wrote a column about how our political debate was being constrained by the demonization of figures like Howard Dean, Al Gore or Ron Paul who were singled out and labeled “weirdos” for expressing opinions outside of party orthodoxy, even though those opinions may have broad popular support.  Noting that Ron Paul [...]

Yesterday was actually big victory for progressivism. Not in health care, but in student loan reform. Finally, a wasteful and worthless corporate welfare program was eliminated. The taxpayer dollars that were being thrown away on private profits will now be redirected to help low income students attend college and pay down the debt. This is [...]