I'm not exactly a fan of the Tea Party. When a debate among Republican candidates was marred by Tea Party members in the audience urging the uninsured to die, I called that "sadism." I said on national TV that: "It's the same impulse that led people in the Coliseum to cheer when the lions ate the Christians."

After 16 months of bitter wrangling over the direction not just of a state but of the national discourse about economic policy, budget priorities, the role of labor unions in the public sector and democracy itself, Wisconsin will decide today on whether to bounce Governor Scott Walker -- the primary American proponent of a European-style austerity agenda based on cuts to wages, benefits, public services and public education -- from the position to won in the 2010 "Republican Wave" election.

National Nurses United is pushing to establish nationwide nurse-ratio guidelines in acute-care facilities, and to strengthen training programs to build the nursing workforce.
 

New York Times published an extraordinarily in-depth look at the intimate role President Obama has played in authorizing US drone attacks overseas, particularly in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. It is chilling to read the cold, macabre ease with which the President and his staff decide who will live or die.

The House and Senate health care proposals would set imaginary limits for spending growth enforced by secret “improvement plans” and wrist slaps for hospitals that overcharge; establish tiered payment schemes to consign the poor and middle class to second-tier hospitals and doctors;

Wisconsin Governor Walker and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett will face off tonight in the second—and final—debate of the Wisconsin gubernatorial recall election campaign.

Barrett, the labor-backed Democrat who seeks to oust Walker, wanted more debates.