The dominant story of the current political debate is that the government is broke. We can’t afford to pay for public services, put people to work, or service the public debt. Yet as a nation, we are awash in money. A defective system of money, banking, and finance just puts it in the wrong places. Raising taxes on the rich and implementing financial reforms are essential elements of the solution to our seemingly intractable fiscal and economic crisis. Yet proposals currently on the table fall far short of the need.

Editor's Note: The American’s for Tax Reform Foundation’s Cost of Government Day Report is a mindbender. If this isn't a steady march towards national, corporate socialism then what?

The Cost of Government Day (COGD), the day of the calendar year on which the average American worker has earned enough gross income to pay off his or her share of the spending and regulatory burdens imposed by government on the federal, state, and local levels, is now August 19, the latest date ever recorded.

In simple language, it means that the average American must work 230 days, or 63% of the year, to pay for the full cost of government.

Protect our Columbia River and prevent cancer in the children who will drink the contaminated water from the Energy Department's (USDOE's) latest plan to use Hanford as a National Radioactive Waste Dump for extremely radioactive wastes.

12,600 truckloads of extremely radioactive waste would come through Oregon and Spokane to Hanford, if Hanford is chosen as the national radioactive waste dump for extremely radioactive (GTCC) wastes.

As DEA raids and IRS harassment continue on state-approved medical marijuana, Big Pharma eyes the profitability of cannabis and prepares to muscle in, using its lobbyists and government connections to ensure a monopoly on legal sales of the drug.

In early April of 2011, two drug manufacturing giants, G.W. Pharmaceuticals and Novartis, announced they had formed an alliance to license and market GW’s Sativex, a liquid cannabis drug. The drug is already available in Great Britain, as well as Canada and Spain. The licensing agreement with Novartis will enable sales to expand into markets in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. FDA Phase III trials are still being organized for Otsuka, GW's partner for licensing Sativex for the US market.

We all know that the wheels of government move slowly -- but nine years slowly? That pace is too lazy for Americans for Safe Access, which just wants answers. So it's going to court to force the federal government to get some response.

At issue is a petition filed Oct. 9, 2002, by the Coalition for Rescheduling Cannabis, a group of medical-marijuana patients and attorneys, which asked the Drug Enforcement Administration to drop marijuana from Schedule I, its list of most dangerous illegal drugs. This classification means a drug has zero medical value and a high potential for abuse.

As quakes are occurring everywhere these days, this info could save your life or the life of someone you love.

My name is Doug Copp. I am the Rescue Chief and Disaster Manager of the American Rescue Team International (ARTI), the world's most experienced rescue team. The information in this article will save lives in an earthquake.



I have crawled inside 875 collapsed buildings, worked with rescue teams from 60 countries, founded rescue teams in several countries, and I am a member of many rescue teams from many countries.



I was the United Nations expert in Disaster Mitigation for two years. I have worked at every major disaster in the world since 1985, except for simultaneous disasters.