In Vermont, a bill that could possibly lead to a government-run single payer health care system is now state law. Republican Gov. Jim Douglas chose not to veto the bill, letting it become law without his signature. At issue, Senate Bill 88 (PDF), creates a commission to design and create an implementation plan for three [...]

While not passing a COBRA extension, Congress did manage to vote for an incredibly expensive second engine for the F-35, which the military says it doesn’t need and really doesn’t want. We are literally wasting billions on hardware the military is asking Congress to cut while causing economically besieged Americans to lose their insurance.

In November, the voters of California will decide whether to end prohibition against cannabis. In preparation for the possibility that marijuana might soon become legal, regulated and taxed, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union is organizing workers in the medicinal-marijuana industry, which is already legal. That is what you would expect labor unions [...]

Mike Stark caught up with Democratic Majority Whip James Clyburn and asked him where he stood with regard to the Deficit Commission and potential plans to cut Social Security benefits. Clyburn said he met with the commission yesterday, had confidence in its composition and had worked with Nancy Pelosi to choose the Democratic members from [...]

With the BP oil spill becoming possibly the worst ecological disaster in US history, why are Dems like Jon Kerry still supporting offshore drilling?

I’ll be tweeting live updates from the Louisiana coast all this week.  You can follow me on twitter at http://twitter.com/michaelwhitney (hashtag: #bpdisaster) // < ![CDATA[ new TWTR.Widget({ version: 2, type: 'profile', rpp: 6, interval: 6000, width: 600, height: 400, theme: { shell: { background: '#18416f', color: '#ffffff' }, tweets: { background: '#ffffff', color: '#000000', links: [...]

A $23 billion emergency proposal to save teacher jobs in the wake of the state budget crisis looks to be hitting the chopping block.  Tom Harkin has pulled his amendment from the war supplemental because the White House didn’t forwarded a budget request.  Dave Obey says he’ll add it back in on Thursday, but according [...]

Two weeks ago, a federally funded drug task force called WestNet seized 200 signatures in support of placing marijuana legalization on the November ballot in Washington State while conducting a raid on a medical marijuana dispensary. Early in the morning, drug agents entered the home of the family that owns a medical marijuana dispensary known [...]

Money from the medical industrial complex efficiently flowed through the foundation world to lay intellectual framework of the health care bill.  The foundations are fulfilling a similar function in order to justify both cutting and privatizing social security, and the check book of Blackstone hedge fund billionaire Pete Peterson is the source of much of [...]

President Obama is now asking for a modified version of the line-item veto, called the Reduce Unnecessary Spending Act of 2010 (PDF). This law would give the President the ability to force the United States Senate to take a guaranteed up-or-down vote on a set of budget cuts without amendments. This request by the President [...]